We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ronit Menashe. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ronit below.
Ronit, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
My journey in the wellness space began after earning my MBA at USC, where I embarked on a remarkable marketing career at Nike. During that time, I discovered Functional Medicine and never looked back. This educational journey eventually led me to join forces with one of the pioneers in functional medicine, Dr. Mark Hyman.
However, in early 2020, a significant life event occurred that shifted my focus once again. I experienced a miscarriage just a week after my best friend went through a similar experience. Determined not to accept the notion that “miscarriages just happen,” we embarked on a journey of research. To our surprise, we came across numerous studies emphasizing the crucial role of sperm health in the journey to parenthood. It became apparent that we had unknowingly overlooked the well-being of our husbands in this entire process of having a baby.
Throughout history and across cultures, women have shouldered the burden of fertility and infertility. It’s time to shift away from placing the sole responsibility on women and WeNatal is here to do just that. We want to change the narrative from “me” to “we.” Men have largely been excluded from mainstream conversations about fertility, despite contributing to approximately 50% of infertility cases and influencing pregnancy and their future baby’s health. We recognized that our experience of neglecting our husbands’ health on our parenthood journey was not unique. Many of our friends also felt shame, guilt, and an overwhelming sense of isolation after experiencing miscarriages.
Recognizing the immense potential for improving sperm health, we initially set out to develop the best male prenatal supplement on the market. However, as we delved deeper into available options for us, we also noticed the oversaturation and confusion in the women’s prenatal industry. Many supplements made lofty promises but ultimately failed to deliver.
This realization prompted us to create WeNatal – the next generation of prenatal supplements designed for both women and men. Our aim is to empower couples with comprehensive support and reliable solutions, revolutionizing the prenatal experience.
When we launched, our focus was supporting people through fertility challenges, providing guidance and education from our medical experts. The fertility journey is inherently stressful, and our goal was to alleviate that burden and ensure no woman faced it alone, as we once did. As we’ve expanded, our success isn’t just measured by individual transformations but by a cultural shift. We witness couples investing jointly in health, preparing together for future parenthood. This marks a significant success for us, as it challenges centuries-old societal pressure on women, fostering a more inclusive and supportive approach to family planning. We are extremely passionate about supporting and educating couples towards a healthy road to parenthood.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
WeNatal is the first prenatal supplement intentionally optimized for her AND him. Female-founded and backed by industry leading Functional Medicine doctors, nutritionists, and fertility experts, including Dr. Mark Hyman and Kelly LeVeque. WeNatal was started with the goal of helping couples navigate the increasingly confusing, stressful world of preconception with a clean, trusted product backed by clinical research, at an accessible price. Unlike most other prenatals on the market, WeNatal has a comprehensive formula with 24 key nutrients and is made with 100% clean ingredients. A main point of differentiation is that it is formulated with key nutrients that others leave out, such as choline, in the most bioavailable forms, in only 3 capsules per day.
It’s incredible to see our mission of including both partners start to become part of mainstream conversation. Most of our subscribers are couples and they are so excited to embark on this important journey together.
The other most gratifying thing is the ultrasound pics, pregnancy announcements and baby pics we get. We get the most amazing emails and messages from our community. Countless couples who have struggled with fertility issues, share stories of discovering WeNatal and both partners invest in preconception, then get pregnant naturally. We are so honored to be able to help all these couples become parents!
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
We learned that sometimes you have to pivot quickly! Approximately six months after our launch, we had the opportunity to work with an incredible advisor, Kathie Swift, who shared some groundbreaking research that was yet to be published. She had access to a new peer-reviewed study from the University of Arizona, which explored the optimal prenatal doses of vitamins and minerals based on over 200 scientific studies.
This put us in a challenging position. Our formula was already considered the most premium in the industry, however we had to decide whether to reformulate based on Kathie’s feedback. After careful consideration, we chose to take the path of innovation, constantly striving to make our products even better.
However, this decision was not an easy one. It meant investing in new nutrition labels, updating our packaging, and making changes to our website. Despite the challenges, we saw it as an opportunity to take our formula to the next level. We enlisted the expertise of a sourcing specialist to help us procure the most potent and pure ingredients. As a result, the new formula we launched in December not only improved the efficacy of our product but also made it better tolerated and easier to take.
It was always our intention to stay on the cutting edge of scientific advancements, but we didn’t anticipate it happening so soon, just six months into our journey. This experience taught us the importance of remaining open to new information and constantly seeking ways to enhance our offerings. It reinforced our commitment to innovation and providing the best possible products to support the fertility journey of our customers.
We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.
When we initially had the idea of WeNatal, we were taking 8-10 prenatal supplements per day and Vida could barely do it. We knew the importance of a prenatal but knew it wouldn’t help people unless it was easy to take. We also learned that the majority of options on the market had paragraphs of fillers, additives and horrible ingredients in their vitamins. We were shocked at the offerings and were on a mission to make a higher quality product with better ingredients at the right doses that are all backed by science. So we worked with the best doctors and experts to create a formula that we would be proud to take and give to our family and friends. The next step was finding a manufacturer that can produce it without excipients and all the harmful things that many other brands have. We contacted close to 20 manufacturers before we found the right one that was able to produce our supplements with the nutrient density of 8 capsules into three. We learned not to compromise your vision, there will always be a solution but sometimes it takes more work to get there. Ask your network for help, we are so grateful for our advisors and friends of the brand who helped guide us through the tough times and ensured we didn’t give up because we knew we were on to something powerful!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://wenatal.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/we_natal/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WeNatal
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wenatal
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@wenatal
Image Credits
Katie Abbot